Giveaways
Erin L. Schneider
Goodreads Giveaway: SUMMER OF SLOANE
Goodreads Giveaway: SUMMER OF SLOANE

Book Reviews

My Review: The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

 The Scorch Trials (Maze Runner, #2)The Scorch Trials by James Dashner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Goodreads Summary:

Solving the Maze was supposed to be the end. No more puzzles. No more variables. And no more running. Thomas was sure that escape meant he and the Gladers would get their lives back. But no one really knew what sort of life they were going back to.

In the Maze, life was easy. They had food, and shelter, and safety...until Teresa triggered the end. In the world outside the Maze, however, the end was triggered long ago.

Burned by sun flares and baked by a new, brutal climate, the earth is a wasteland. Government has disintegrated—and with it, order—and now Cranks, people covered in festering wounds and driven to murderous insanity by the infectious disease known as the Flare, roam the crumbling cities hunting for their next victim . . . and meal.

The Gladers are far from finished with running. Instead of freedom, they find themselves faced with another trial. They must cross the Scorch, the most burned-out section of the world, and arrive at a safe haven in two weeks. And WICKED has made sure to adjust the variables and stack the odds against them.

Thomas can only wonder—does he hold the secret of freedom somewhere in his mind? Or will he forever be at the mercy of WICKED?

My Review: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Delirium (Delirium, #1)Delirium by Lauren Oliver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Goodreads Summary:

Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love -- the deliria -- blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the governments demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.

My Review:

I was pleasantly surprised by Lauren Oliver's second novel, Delirium. A current spin on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the story expertly intertwines a dystopian United States, where falling in love is against the law - with a girl on the verge of having the procedure done, that will cure her forever. Or so they tell her.

My Review: Awakened - House of Night #8 by P.C. & Kristen Cast

AWAKENED - House of Night #8, by P.C. & Kristen Cast

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Goodreads Summary:

At the start of Awakened, the pulse-pounding eighth installment of the bestselling House of Night series, Zoey has returned, mostly whole, from the Otherworld to her rightful place as High Priestess at the House of Night. Her friends are just glad to have her back, but after losing her human consort, Heath, will Zoey—or her relationship with her super- hot Warrior, Stark—ever be the same? Stevie Rae is drawn even closer to Rephaim, the Raven Mocker with whom she shares a mysterious and powerful Imprint, but he is a dangerous secret that isolates her from her school, her red fledglings, and even her best friends. When the dark threat of Neferet—who is coming closer and closer to achieving her twisted goal of immortality—and Kalona returns, what will it take to keep the House of Night from being lost forever, and what will one desperate girl do to keep her heart from being irreparably broken?

Review:

Book #8 in the House of Night series was a big disappointment for me. The first few books in the series were entertaining - what with the House of Night being a finishing school of sorts, for vampires. But I now find that I'm growing tired of the plot and the series has started to drag - book 8 (keep in mind, all books are around 275 pages in length), and the MC Zoey, is still somewhere around her junior year of high school (I think? it's hard to keep track, since the concept of the school has fallen off from the plot)...the books started with her in her sophomore year, so you can see, she's not progressed far in time. With that being said - SO much has happened to her in this fictional "year" - enough that it could've spanned her entire time in high school.

My Review: THE REPLACEMENT by Brenna Yovanoff

The ReplacementThe Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Summary:

Mackie Doyle is not one of us. Though he lives in the small town of Gentry, he comes from a world of tunnels and black murky water, a world of living dead girls ruled by a little tattooed princess. He is a Replacement, left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago. Now, because of fatal allergies to iron, blood, and consecrated ground, Mackie is fighting to survive in the human world.

Mackie would give anything to live among us, to practice on his bass or spend time with his crush, Tate. But when Tate's baby sister goes missing, Mackie is drawn irrevocably into the underworld of Gentry, known as Mayhem. He must face the dark creatures of the Slag Heaps and find his rightful place, in our world, or theirs.

My Review: I AM NUMBER FOUR by Pitticus Lore

I Am Number Four (Lorien Legacies, #1)I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Summary:
Nine of us came here. We look like you. We talk like you. We live among you. But we are not you. We can do things you dream of doing. We have powers you dream of having. We are stronger and faster than anything you have ever seen. We are the superheroes you worship in movies and comic books—but we are real.

Our plan was to grow, and train, and become strong, and become one, and fight them. But they found us and started hunting us first. Now all of us are running. Spending our lives in shadows, in places where no one would look, blending in. We have lived among you without you knowing.

My Review: BEAUTIFUL CREATURES by Kami Garcia

Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles, #1)Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was incredibly anxious to read this one, 1.) because I'd heard lots of great reviews and 2.) because I was eager to read a book that was from a boy's POV.

However...

This book dragged on...and on...and on. And not until the last 150 pages, did it really start to pick up steam. And it was those last pages that made me change my rating from "it was ok" to "liked it".

I will admit, I enjoyed Ethan's character - however, considering this was a boy's POV, I was very surprised by some of his mannerisms. For instance, describing what Lena (the love interest) was wearing - down to the color of her shoes - and how in love he was with her (just doesn't seem realistic for a 16 year old boy).

I really found myself not caring about either character, until 2/3 of the way through - however, side characters such as Macon and Ridley, made up some of what was missing, in the beginning and middle.

Overall, this was an incredibly LONG read for me. I do have the second book, Beautiful Darkness - but am putting that on hold, in order to read something else (Pitticus Lore's I Am Number Four, before it comes out in the theaters next month).

I hope the next one takes over where the last 150 pages of Beautiful Creatures ended, and keeps up the great pace. Otherwise, I may be in jeopardy of not finishing this series...

View all my reviews